A room, especially a room with a concrete slab in the dead of winter, can become so cold as to render the room almost completely useless. To restore functionality to cold rooms, homeowners and building owners have turned to the solution of underfloor radiant heating. This type of heating benefits both rooms with concrete slabs as well as rooms with other types of flooring, such as hardwood, plywood, or panel flooring.
For installation, radiant heat tubes may be installed either above or below the subfloor. Regardless of the level of installation, it is often challenging to lay the tubing evenly spaced apart so as to avoid uneven heat distribution. To ensure even spacing, plywood may be manufactured with pre-cut grooves in which the tubing may be installed. However, this creates a time-consuming challenge of measuring and documenting the location of installed heating tube, forming each sheet of plywood to match the tube configuration for its location, and connecting sections of plywood to conform to the specifications of a given room. This challenge is magnified when shaping tubes to fit corners, curves, ground vents, columns, and other barriers that exist along the floor of a room.
Consequently, a need exists for improvements of laying radiant heat tubing.